


Medea

by mothsmenagerie



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Character Study, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Introspection, Literal Sleeping Together, M/M, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Trans Keith (Voltron), Trans Male Character, because I say so, i dont know whats happening with this one, lots of weird symbolism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-16
Updated: 2020-08-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:34:36
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,177
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25932187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mothsmenagerie/pseuds/mothsmenagerie
Summary: Here my shell shattered on the floorAll my memories fadeYou tell me I look beautifulWith tears run down my face
Relationships: Allura/Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron)
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Medea

**Author's Note:**

> idk the pacing or time period for this. sorta nebulously s7/s8 but lets face it i blocked those two out. vaguely a fixit. see if you can spot the lupin/hozier references because im insane

The fringes of his sight are shadowed with a warm vignette effect. He can't quite tell if it's a shade of pink, or red--those two colors have always been hard for him to distinguish. There's so much of it that he has to blink sun spots out of his eyes and hope he's not too blind to make the right choice.

And so he chooses Allura.

She makes him warm, dazed, sleepy. She makes him feel as if he's slipped into the river Lethe, and it makes heat curl in his stomach and his brain go foggy and he knows it's a dangerous thing but he can't stop drowning in the milky waters and undercurrents of that wretched, wretched flow. It's poison, it's alcohol, makes him complacent.

He loves her for how numb and sedated she makes him feel. And she seems to love him.

Maybe as only an afterthought. Maybe because she didn't know what to do with her heart once it broke and so she put it in his equally unsteady hands and hoped he could mend it. But she loves him. Two barely-adults inexperienced in this arena hoping to get by like they're limping an old yellow Fiat with two flat tires to the nearest town but it keeps getting farther and farther away and Lance wonders. Will they ever get there? And is he content to keep on limping?

She doesn't look quite directly at him. Turns away when he kisses her. It doesn't hurt like he thinks it should, more just solidifies _something_ in his chest that says he made the wrong choice in his desperation for romantic affections. It's a resigned notion. Still, he keeps kissing her. And she cradles his face oh so tenderly, but it's oh so melancholy as well. Like they both know their two-wheeled beater of a car is running low on gas and they'll never make it to the next town.

And yet. His veins are still so buzzed and his vision is blurry and he's drunk on cherry wine that's maybe too old, too stale, even for what it is.

Colors smear in his eyes. So much color. The pitch of space, the white of stars. Bruise-black (almost purple), yellow, green, pink, red, the blue of his own eyes and his own armor in the mirror. Nothing's discernable. He has to rub at his face to try and clear his vision, but it's like trying to rub away bog-mud, and the colors blur together more.

He can't quite tell exactly what time he wakes up but everything is crimson. There's ringing in his ears and smoke in his lungs and the ugly spiderweb scar on his back that digs into his ribs and makes him look ill burns like fire under his skin. He's panicking. Every breath he takes tightens his chest. He has to… he has to… Allura…

_Keith…_

Lance crumples out of bed--god, since when was he built like paper? His legs carry him to the doorway, his vision fills with black spots, he pushes forward. He doesn't remember most of his journey, but he finds himself at Keith's door, panting, wet blue tears marring his face. He feels shame. He can't let Keith see him like this. Can't show off all the broken and ugly parts of him while his face droops and melts with saline and becomes unrecognizable.

But Keith's already there, staring. Lance doesn't remember knocking. Maybe he just knew. A romantic notion otherwise, an embarrassing one now. Is he that obvious? Is he that predictable?

Keith's knuckles are white on the frame. His body is lined with thick red marker as he glows in front of Lance. It shifts as Keith shifts, alights on his collarbone, and then the plane of his cheek, and then along the curve of his hair. He's neon, colorful, animated but static, as his vibrant purple eyes darken and run over Lance's putty frame.

"Lance."

It breaks some of the effect. Clears his vision enough that the saturation becomes less overwhelming and the only strong colors are the maybe-pink or maybe-red in the corners of his eyes.

He needs to try sleeping better. Aside from tonight he hasn't in a while and his eyes have started to cross from the exhaustion.

Keith reaches to touch him. He's hot like fire, and Lance lets him brand his wrist and pull him into his room. 

"We're losing you again," Keith murmurs. "You haven't been sleeping, have you?"

Lance closes his tear-heavy eyes, lashes clumping together. "It's hard. Every time I do I hear so much ringing. So much war. Or I hear absolutely nothing and it lets me think too much."

Keith presses a searing palm to Lance's temple. "The music's not helping anymore, is it?"

Lance shakes his head. "No."

The heat of Keith's hands, one on his neck, the other gently massaging its way through his hair, sinks into his throbbing crown and relieves some of the pressure, enough that he starts crying again, because he lacks the strength to hold it back any longer. Keith doesn't seem to mind that he's melting.

"What was it tonight?"

"That first explosion. On Arus."

Keith presses his forehead to Lance's and breathes his stilted, wet breath, as much as the meager three inches between their mouths allows. He's not one for words, not in times like this, and Lance isn't one to ask for them. It's enough that Keith is heating the atmosphere surrounding them, warm palms easing the ache of grim ideation and past trauma. Lance tries to swallow but his tongue is sticky in his mouth, and Keith hushes him. 

"Try not to force it. Trust me. I know."

Lance nods and his sweaty forehead slips against Keith's, and their noses slot together. Keith stiffens, but makes no move to pull away, so neither does Lance.

Keith holds him for a while. Turns his core to plasma with his warmth. Whispers he'll be okay at some point. His lips are close. His eyes are bright and heavy.

Lance heaves a sigh and lets himself fall against Keith, eyes closed and vision tinged with red. He can feel Keith's heartbeat press against his own, hear his pulse where his face has landed in the crook of his neck. He's an arsonist, and Lance lets the gasoline burn away whatever dry tinder lays burdensome in his ribs.

He wakes up in Keith's room. They exchange few words. Lance leaves Keith, and his rested eyes don't flare with a rainbow of color on his way out.

The week is spent catching his eyes on Keith's sharp neon edges, his incandescent purple gaze, over Allura's shoulder, past their entwined hands. He meets his stare every time, and at first it's warm, reassuring, but after days of this it darkens with hints of confusion and something deeper, _hotter,_ hot like shame in the gut, hot like blood in the ears.

Allura's grip fades more and more. Eventually her hand slips from his, and Lance isn't really surprised when it does, but it still breaks something in him, rending one part of him from the other in a gorey, bloody, uneven tear, leaving fibers of muscle and dark crimson veins exposed. He's not all there when she tells him, says this isn't working, takes his hands in hers and whispers with plush lips on his cheek that her heart's not in it, never has been. He only nods, wordlessly, and lets her go, vision flashing with spots, wavering like he's underwater.

He lets whatever nasty tumor her departure plants in him fester and ferment in his intestines, in his stomach, in the spot in his ribs right flush under his lungs, so that come day--well, he's lost track now--without her around in the same light she always had been, he's dizzy and struggling to get enough air, and no one stops him when he excuses himself from a briefing to collapse on the counter in a bathroom, chest heaving, hitching, gut churning and threatening to spill what little contents sit within.

He can't see straight. Everything's filtered red, and blurry, and he slumps against the floor and holds his head. When he opens his eyes again Keith is in front of him, and he tilts Lance's head up to look at him.

"You're a mess," he says fondly, worriedly, and he scrapes a gloved thumb across Lance's cheek to dry the tears he must've shed. Lance gasps a sob and leans into it, and Keith pulls him to his feet. "C'mon, sharpshooter. I'll help you out."

Keith leads him down the hall. Lance keeps thinking they're in the castle, but that's long gone now. The Atlas then? Or are they in barracks at home? He's tired. Grieving. Been having anxiety attacks for weeks. Not himself. And no amount of warm touch or hushed whispers of "I'm here" will fix it, not all the way, no matter how well Keith delivers each in the safety of his room. No, he needs _medicine._ And he's working on it. He's made appointments. He's almost there.

Until then, though, Keith's burning hands ghosting almost bashfully over his arms and waist will have to do.

It's not like they haven't been physical before. Cramped quarters and team-building exercises have made sure of that. But this feels different. Keith looks at him so colorfully, eyes soft and gentle, and his hands come up to Lance's neck, his now bare thumbs brushing his jaw on either side.

"Does. Being held help?"

He's the only thing Lance can solidly and confidently identify, the only thing he can be sure of in this watery landscape around him. Even being touched by him is making it easier to see and breathe, and he nods weakly. "Myeah. Being able to, uh… to feel you. It's grounding me." To emphasize he squeezes Keith's elbows, where both of his hands have been resting.

Keith nods and reaches up to tousle Lance's hair. "What kinda contact we talkin about here?"

Lance grips a little harder. "I--I want…" He can't even think straight. "You're… so warm. I want to be able to _feel_ you, I..." Lance shakes his head, he already _said_ that, what's he looking for--

"Skin?" Keith asks, and it wavers with something almost hopeful. Hah, like he's got a crush on him or something. Lance nods and falls against Keith's shoulder.

"Please. If that's..."

"Yeah. It's okay."

Keith's hands are numb-hot where they tremble along the hem of Lance's uniform and undershirt. His nails just barely scrape Lance's skin as he pulls both off of him, and he looks away when he does so.

"You want comfier pants?" Lance nods, and Keith fetches him a pair of sweats. "Might be big, sorry. I'll, uh..." He turns to get changed himself, and for a moment Lance stands small, exposed, vulnerable, before Keith comes back and his hands nervously find their place on his waist.

Lance's groggy eyes wander over him. So many scars. On his shoulders, biceps, ribs, hips. Two sit under his pecs, older than the rest, more faded, and he knows those were on purpose. Keith had told him a while ago anyway--Shiro had helped pay for them--but so far he's been loathe to display them. In some semi-conscious way, Lance is touched he's letting him see them.

Keith brings his hands up to Lance's face. "God, you're thin."

"Can't eat. Get sick."

Keith frowns. "I'll help you sleep," he murmurs, "and then I'm making you eat when you wake up. Even if it's only a little at a time."

He takes Lance's hand and pulls him to bed, easing him down and curling up behind him. Lance shudders as his searing flesh presses into his own, flush against his back, and he can feel Keith's abs flex as he chuckles to himself, snaking an arm over Lance and pulling him impossibly closer.

Lance's addled mind finally slows. He's exhausted. Keith's hot breath puffs on the nape of his neck and maybe he's fully lost it, but there's what feels suspiciously like a brush of lips against the bump in his spine where his neck and torso meet. Lance closes his eyes. He does not open them for a good seventeen hours.

When he does, Keith is on the edge of the bed, reading something on his phone. Lance lazily reaches for him, and Keith looks down and slides their fingers together.

"Mornin."

Lance grunts. "Come back to bed," he says blearily, and Keith turns red at this. "'S cold without you." 

"Lance..."

"Been dreamin about you. Come back."

Keith shyly puts away his phone and lays back down next to Lance, who pulls him close. "You must be losing it," Keith murmurs, but he's smiling, and Lance thinks the red in his cheeks suits him.

"'M not losin _you_." He doesn't know if it makes sense, but he cups Keith's face and brings their foreheads together.

Seems he's finally chosen the right color.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry its been a while since i wrote anything good lol. ive had no bruabba inspiration and with covid i just kinda went into a slump and couldn't be motivated to write anything. i kinda hated this one at first but i picked it back up and realized i was really proud of it so. finished it and here we are! apologies if there are any mistakes or if i call lance "lupin", its late and ive been thinking about lupin nonstop for months lmao


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